HRD Minister Kapil Sibal asked a govt task force to “rework” on its draft national book promotion policy and mooted a neighbourhood book policy under which more libraries and reading rooms could be set up in the country.

He also suggested the task force to look into the model of libraries and reading rooms being followed in Tamil Nadu and that it can be incorporated in their report.

“Union Minister of Human Resource Development Kabil Sibal has mooted that there be a neighborhood book policy in the country. He gave this suggestion to the Task Force that has prepared the Draft National Book Promotion Policy during a round table held to discuss the policy here,” an official statement Underling that there should be neighborhood libraries and reading rooms like neigbourhood schools, Minister asked the task force to hold meetings with students and parents in this regard.

“The state governments would also have to be involved for this,” he suggested.

The minister also suggested to the task force to look at preparing a pricing policy for books, “which would be advisory and not mandatory, consistent with international norms, in their report.”

He also asked the task force to take a “fresh” look at the publishing of school text books and to see whether greater private sector involvement could be looked at here.

He also told the publishing industry that a huge opportunity awaits them in publishing of e-books, especially for children’s books that can be illustrated.

He also underlined that there is “vast scope” of translations of books in India from one language to the other.

Sibal also suggested that the task force could look at incorporating the suggestion from a member participating in the round table that the publishers make available electronic manuscripts of books to braille book publishers so that the effort of retyping a book can be avoided.

He also asked the task force to look at how the electronic media can be asked to participate in the popularisation of reading.

He noted the requirement of creative writing modules and of “at least one hour every week being dedicated to reading in schools.”

Sibal also underlined the need of a policy framework to reach out to potential authors, especially in small places, “who find it very difficult to find publishers.”

The minister said that an idea that could be looked at by the task force was the setting up of a national level website, connected to the states and to the districts, so that those seeking to author books can reach out to a “committee or committees consisting of government and non-government members.”

“This would be a forum to enable a person to access publishers, which is otherwise extremely difficult for an ordinary person. The Task Force could work at the de tails and the sifting mechanism,” he said.